The Violent Land (17 page)

THE BIRTH OF CITIES

Once upon a time there were three sisters: Maria, Lucia, and Violeta. Three sisters who were as one in the lives that they led and in their light-hearted laughter. Lucia of the black braids, Violeta of the lacklustre eyes, and Maria who was the youngest of the three. Once upon a time there were three sisters who were as one in the fate that awaited them.

They cut off Lucia's braids, her breasts grew round, and her cinnamon-coloured thighs were like two brown columns. The boss came and took her. A cedarwood bed and a feather mattress, bolsters and coverlets. Once upon a time there were three sisters.

Violeta's eyes were wide-opened on the world, her breasts were pointed, her big, youthful buttocks were waves as she walked. The overseer came and took her. An iron bed and a horsehair mattress, sheets, and the Virgin Mary. Once upon a time there were three sisters.

Maria, youngest of the three, had tiny breasts and a belly that was sleek and smooth. Came the boss; he did not want her. Came the overseer; he did not take her. There was left Pedro, a worker on the plantation. A cowhide bed without sheet or coverlets, no cedarwood, no feathers. Maria and her love.

Once upon a time there were three sisters: Maria, Lucia, Violeta. Three sisters who were as one in the lives that they led and in their light-hearted laughter. Lucia with her boss, Violeta with her overseer, and Maria with her love. Once upon a time there were three sisters whom destiny had parted.

Lucia's braids grew again, her rounded breasts sank in, and her column-like thighs were covered with black-and-blue marks. The boss rode away in an automobile, taking with him the cedarwood bed, the bolsters, and the coverlets. Once upon a time there were three sisters.

Violeta's wide eyes were closed from fear of looking at the world about her, her breasts were flaccid, and she had a child to suckle. On his sorrel horse the overseer left one day, never to return. The iron bed went also. Once upon a time there were three sisters.

Maria, youngest of the three, went with her husband to the field, to the cacao plantations. When she came back from the field, she was the oldest of the three. Pedro went away one day, for he was neither a boss nor an overseer; he went away in a casket, a plain wooden box, leaving behind him the cowhide bed and Maria with her love. Once upon a time there were three sisters.

Where now are Lucia's braids, Violeta's breasts, Maria's love?

Once upon a time there were three sisters in a cheap whorehouse. Three sisters who were as one in their suffering and in their despair. Maria, Lucia, Violeta: three sisters who were as one in the fate that awaited them.

At the door of the clay-walled house, a house without paint or whitewash, the three men stopped. The young man and the man from Ceará were carrying the hammock with the corpse while the old man rested, leaning on his staff. They stood there for a minute or so. It was early morning, and there was no sign of life in the street of whorehouses.

“What if they're sleeping with customers?” the young one asked.

The old fellow threw up his hands. “We'll have to wake them just the same.”

They pounded on the door, but there was no response from within. All was silent in the street outside. A street on the outskirts of the town of Ferradas. Small houses of beaten clay, some of them roofed with straw, some with tiles, the majority with zinc. Here lived the town whores, and here, on feast-days, came workers from the plantations in search of love-making. The old man pounded on the door with his staff from time to time. At last someone shouted from inside the house:

“Who is it? What the devil do you want?” It was a woman's sleepy voice. A masculine voice then added: “Be on your way. We're full up here.” This was accompanied by a satisfied laugh.

“They've got company, all right,” the young man observed. He could not see how they were going to deliver the dead man to his daughters if they were sleeping with customers.

The old man was lost in thought for a moment.

“We've got to do it,” he said. “We've got to deliver him, anyway.”

“Wouldn't it be better to wait?” said the man from Ceará.

“And what are we going to do with him?” the greybeard demanded, pointing to the corpse. “He's been out of the ground a long time already. The poor fellow needs a rest.” And with this he called again: “Lucia! Violeta! Lucia!”

“What do you want?” It was a man's voice again.

The old man then called out the third daughter's name: “Maria! Oh, Maria!”

At the door of the neighbouring house an old woman appeared, still half asleep. She was about to protest against the noise when she caught sight of the corpse.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“He's their father,” the man from Ceará replied, pointing to the house in front of him.

“Did they kill him?” the old woman wanted to know.

“He died of fever.”

The woman left her doorsill and came up to the men. She looked the body over with an air of nausea.

“Are they at home? Nobody answers the door.”

“They had a jamboree last night. It was Juquinha's birthday, the one who's sweet on Violeta. They kept it up until morning. That's why you can't wake them.” She then chimed in with the old man in calling: “Violeta! Violeta!”

“Who is it? What the devil do you want?”

“It's your father!” the woman screeched.

“Who?” There was a note of surprise in the speaker's voice.

“Your father!”

There was a silence broken only by the stirring of the people inside the house. The door opened and Violeta stuck her head out. As her eyes fell on the little group, she craned her neck, and then, recognizing the corpse as that of her father, she screamed. The commotion on the inside grew louder. The entire street was astir now. Women came running out of the houses, followed at a more leisurely pace by the men who had been spending the night with them. Most of them were scantily clad in their sleeping-garments; only a few had thrown a nightgown over their nakedness. Standing around the body, they conversed with lowered voices.

“It was the fever.”

“You can't do anything for it.”

“But it's catching, isn't it?”

“They say you can get it from the air.”

“They'd better bury him, then.”

“He hadn't seen his daughters for years. He was sore at them because they went wrong.”

“They say he never came to Ferradas, out of shame.”

Women with battered faces, mulatto women, Negro women, here and there a white woman. Their legs and arms and frequently their faces as well bore scars. The atmosphere was heavy with stale alcohol mingled with cheap perfume. One woman whose uncombed hair formed an enormous top-knot now went over to the corpse.

“I slept with him once. It was in Tabocas.”

This remark was greeted by silence. Violeta still stood in the doorway without the courage to come closer.

“Take him inside.” It was a mulatto girl who gave the order.

Lucia and Maria had now come out. Lucia was weeping. “My father, my father.” Maria slowly approached the body, a frightened look in her eyes. Several men had followed them out.

“Juquinha, your father-in-law's kicked the bucket,” said one of the women with a smile.

“Please have some respect for the dead,” the old man begged her.

“You're nothing but a dirty whore,” said one of the other girls.

Lifting the hammock, the bearers carried it into the house, the entire crowd following at their heels. Some of the men had just finished buttoning up their trousers; the women went as they were, half-clad. The latter appeared to be all of the same age and the same colour—a sickly hue. These were the dregs of life, the lower depths. Inasmuch as the house did not afford a parlour, there being merely five small cubbyholes for the five women inmates, they left the dead man in Violeta's bed, which was in the front room. The old man took out the stub of a candle, now almost wholly burned away. Above the bed was the picture of a saint, Senhor do Bomfim, the saint who presides over a “good end.” A magazine page showing a blond nude had also been tacked to the wall. Lucia was sobbing, Maria was standing beside the body, and Violeta had gone to look for another candle. The bystanders were scattering through the hallway. Juquinha then came in with a bottle of rum and began serving the men who had carried the corpse. Maria picked up the guitar that was standing at the head of the bed.

Speaking to the man from Ceará, the old man pointed to Maria as she passed, guitar in hand.

“I knew her when she was a little thing. She was cute as could be. And afterwards she grew up to be one of the prettiest gals you ever saw—when she married Pedro. You wouldn't think it to look at her now.”

“You can see she was good-looking once.”

“Ah, but this whore's life does away with their good looks in a couple of days' time.”

The young man was eyeing Maria with interest.

A number of the women had retired to put on more clothes. Before leaving, one of the men offered Lucia some money. Violeta and Juquinha were calculating the cost of a casket and a burial. It came high. They now returned to the room where Lucia and Maria were with the body, and all four of them began discussing the matter. Juquinha, who was like one of the family, did the figuring. No, it would not be possible for them to buy a casket. Even a plot in the cemetery was very dear.

“We'll have to bury him in the hammock,” said Lucia. “We can put a sheet over him.”

After her first screams Violeta had been calm enough.

“I don't know,” she said, “why we don't bury him in the street and get it over with. He never had anything to do with us.”

“You've got no heart,” Maria broke in. “I'm sure I don't know why you screamed like that when you first saw him. It was all put on. He was a good man.” Violeta was about to retort, but Maria went on: “He was ashamed of us because we led a fast life, that was all. He had some feelings. It wasn't that he didn't like us.”

Outside in the hallway the old fellow who had brought the corpse was telling the visitors how the man had died, how the three days' fever had carried him off.

“There was no remedy that would do him any good. We had a lot of medicine from the store on the Baraúnas plantation, but it didn't help any.”

Back in the room Lucia, who was very religious, was suggesting that they send for Friar Bento to say some prayers. Juquinha doubted that he would come.

“He wouldn't set foot in a place like this.”

“Who told you he wouldn't?” said Violeta. “When Isaura died, he came. The only thing was it cost a lot.” Not wishing to be taken for her father's enemy, she said no more; it was Juquinha who took up where she left off: “He'll only come for a big fee—not less than twenty milreis.”

Lucia was ready to give up the idea: “If that's the way it is, we won't send for him.”

She stood there gazing at the dead man's emaciated face, his greenish countenance, which appeared to be smiling in this, his last affliction. She was deeply grieved, heart-broken, at the idea of their putting her father away like that.

“They're going to bury him without so much as a prayer, poor fellow!” she stammered between her tears. “He never did anyone any harm. He was a good man. And now there's no one even to pray for his soul. I never thought—Oh, my father—”

Violeta took her sister by the arm, which was the most affectionate gesture that she knew. “We'll pray ourselves. I still remember a prayer.”

But the mulatto girl who had slept with the dead man once upon a time, and who had overheard this conversation from the hallway, now took twenty milreis from her stocking and, coming into the room, handed the money to Lucia.

“Don't leave him without a prayer,” she said.

This gave Juquinha the idea of taking up a collection, and he went about among those present to get their contributions. One man who had nothing to give volunteered to go for Friar Bento, and set out at once; it was his way of collaborating.

Lucia then remembered the rites of hospitality. “We must give these men some coffee,” she said, alluding to the three who had brought the body.

Maria went out to the back of the house; and when she called for the old man, the young man, and the man from Ceará to come, the others all accompanied them to the kitchen. In the room with the dead there remained only Violeta and the mulatto girl who had given the twenty milreis. The latter had never before beheld in the peaceful repose of death a man with whom she had slept. She was greatly impressed, and looked upon him as her own, as a near relative.

In the kitchen, over the coffee, the old man sought to change the subject.

“Did you know,” he was saying, “that the Badarós sent out to have Firmo killed yesterday?”

They all pricked up their ears at this.

“What's that you're saying?”

“Did they kill him?”

“No, the shot missed him. And it's a wonder, too, for it was Negro Damião.”

One of the listeners whistled in astonishment.

“And Negro Damião missed his aim?” Another man put the question. “Well, it's the end of the world, that's all I've got to say.”

The old man was flattered at having aroused so much interest. Employing a fingernail as a toothpick, he extracted a shred of manihot and then continued:

“Firmo passed us on the road, riding like the very devil. He was making for Colonel Horacio's house. They say there's going to be hell to pay.”

Forgetful of the dead, they crowded about the speaker, some of them sprawling over the tiny kitchen table in order not to lose a single word, as others raised their heads to see over those in front of them. Their eyes were bulging with curiosity. The old man was explaining what they all knew:

“It's on account of the forest of Sequeiro Grande.”

“It's going to start now.”

The speaker asked for silence and then went on:

“Yes, it's already starting. Farther along we ran into Firmo again, coming back with a couple of Colonel Horacio's lads, and Colonel Maneca Dantas was with them. They took the short-cut to the Baraúnas place. They were riding at a gallop.”

Juquinha, who was one of the Badarós' men, put in a word here.

“Colonel Horacio thinks Teodoro's going to side with him. You can fool him as easy as a baby with a stick of candy. He can't see that Colonel Teodoro is hand in glove with the Badarós.”

Lucia broke in at this point.

“He's a wretch,” she said, “that's what he is, a bandit. He'll go with whichever side offers him the most.”

“You ought to know,” said one of the women, with a smile, “seeing as how you was his sweetie and he was the one that first had you.”

Lucia drew herself up, her eyes flashing. “That was the worst thing that ever happened. He's the meanest man there is.”

“But he's got nerve,” said one of the men who were present.

“Oh, he's got that, all right, especially when he's with a woman; but when he's after one of them, he can be as tame as a little bird. I remember how he was with me. He used to come around with a present every day—a new dress, a pair of shoes, an embroidered handkerchief. And the promises that he made! Why, he promised me a house in Ilhéos, he promised me clothes, he even promised me a diamond ring for my finger. He promised everything, until he'd had me—and then the promises flew out the window and I ended up here in this street, without my father's blessing.”

They were all silent; the man from Ceará looked frightened. Lucia glanced around and saw that they were waiting for more:

“And do you think I was the only one? When he'd had his fill of me, he began making eyes at Violeta; and if it hadn't been that Ananias, the overseer, was there before him and had already laid a leg with her—if he didn't go after Violeta, it was because he was afraid of Ananias.”

The old man now spoke up. “A black man who has a daughter,” he said, “is only bringing her up for the white man's bed.”

But Lucia had more to tell.

“And when Pedro died,” she went on, “the one that was married to Maria, the very night after he was buried the colonel came to the house to offer his help. He didn't even respect the poor girl's grief, but climbed into the bed which was still warm from her husband's body. There's nothing lower than that.”

There was another silence. The young man who had helped carry the corpse had had his eyes on Maria ever since he came; it was obvious that he desired her. Had it not been a day of mourning, he would have suggested going to bed with her. It was two months now since he had known what a woman was like, and the remnants of Maria's good looks had at once attracted his attention. Of all the conversation, only that part about Colonel Teodoro's possessing her on the day of her husband's burial had interested him.